


warm me up and breathe me

by zinthos



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M, REALLY SUBTLE ROMANCE I DIDNT MEAN TO, of sorts, something close to depression and anxiety but not really explored, survivor's guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 22:19:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12068097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinthos/pseuds/zinthos
Summary: Noctis is used to constraint. Of being told,here, this is what is expected of him,here, this is what he’s destined to do and,here, this is the path he must follow even if it leads to death.But he’s done all that already. And,here, this is his second chance. If it can even be called that, and who’s to say? Because there’s no one here to tell it, there are no ancient voices; there is no stone with his lifespan drilled into it so it can be unavoidable.Now, there’s only freedom and Noctis feels lost.





	warm me up and breathe me

**Author's Note:**

> for promptis fan week prompt one: _ten years later_. it's supposed to go with both prompts, so, _realization - the moment they knew it was love_ , too, but i feel like i failed at this part so. anyway just. yeah.

Noctis Lucis Caelum resuscitates nearly four days after the first sunrise. He comes back with a bone-shaking gasp, pink eyes snapping open and spine curving inward and off the cold, hard table where he lies.

The scream follows.

It’s filled with agony and horror and _life_. It stretches out in the emptiness of the room housing him, vibrating against the concrete walls and pelting the door until it snaps open and his royal retinue sprint in, just to pause and drink in the sight, that the dead King of Light has returned. 

Shortly after, Noctis drops back onto the table, magic around him like a blanket, crackling and the faintest of violet-pink. Like his eyes that glaze over and stare at the ceiling as his lungs start to remember how to expand and contract with oxygen, his heart slowly restarting, beating slow, slow, slow. His brain is the last to return and when it reboots, another scream filled with utmost pain rips out his throat, knees bending, spine snapping off the table with a gods-awful jerk. Once. Twice. _Thrice_.

It happens thirteen times and each one is accompanied by a scream, a grunt, a gurgle of blood despite there being none.

And then, there is silence. Nothing.

He lies on the table, unmoving, but with his chest rising and falling. Slow and faint. When his friends approach him, it’s to their relief that his eyes are still opened, glassy and pink with the heavy flow of magic that oozes out his very being. He’s unresponsive when Prompto calls to him with the familiar, intimate, “Noct?”

But when he places a hand on his chest, the mere tips of his fingers, Noctis convulses once more and chokes even as he sits up, limp hair falling over his face, shoulders slumped and arms boneless at his side.

“Noct?”

“Is he…”

“No, Iggy, he’s still alive,” Gladio says. “He’s… _alive_.”

Noctis turns to them, the movement slow and almost terrifying to look at. His eyes are unfocused but he blinks. He _blinks_.

“I’m…” His voice is rough. “I’m tired.”

Ignis gasps at the sound of his voice and Prompto can’t hold himself back any longer. The miasma of magic breaks as Prompto’s arms wrap around Noctis’ shoulders and the first grunt lacking any source of that disturbing amount of pain is let out as Noctis accepts the group hug that anchors him back into the land of the living.

 

-

 

As much as he wants to, the gritty stuff can’t be avoided.

He’s moved out of the room where his life restarts, if only because the faint, foulish stench of his once-corpse lingers in the air like a bad memory. Gladio has to carry him because it seems as though his brain has not yet remembered how to work his legs.

His arms, thankfully, are much easier and it’s like this that he unbuttons the ruined black dress-shirt of his kingly garbs. He shrugs it off his shoulders, humming in something like pain at the jab of his stiff muscles.

“Oh man,” Prompto breathes from behind him, keeping him company while Gladio and Ignis search for Cor the Immortal. Noctis hears the footsteps, the scuffing of Prompto’s boots against the floor as he comes closer to him, still lingering in the back. “Look what They did to you…”

“What is it?” Noctis croaks, trying to twist his upper body around to look at his best friend.

But he realizes what Prompto means when he feels the fingertips ghost down the length of his spine and back up. He does it two more times before he moves around the bed where Noctis sits, until he’s right in front of him, eyebrows furrowed and violet-blue eyes concentrating as he studies Noct’s peach-colored skin.

“Prompto,” Noctis calls and Prompto flinches a bit as he comes back to attention. “What is it?”

Prompto swallows hard and it shows in the way the bump at his throat twitches, Noctis stares, his mind telling him something he should remember: a patch of freckles, to the right, like starburst, like decoration. It’s uncalled for, the thought, and it has little to do with what is happening but it hits him then. A wave of nostalgia, like a barely-there current but he’s interrupted from the memory before he can even _remember_ it into existence inside his head.

“Look,” Prompto breathes, getting closer, leaning in and touching somewhere under the dip of Noctis’ clavicle and then trailing it down to the dip of his belly button. “Is this where…”

Prompto trails off and Noctis looks down, slow because his bones creak and pop with his every movement. What’s taken his friend’s attention so hauntingly so, Noctis wonders, letting his eyes settle on his exposed chest.

There, from the point where Prompto’s touch started to where it ended, lives a thick, long scar. It’s the faintest of pink against the rest of his skin, the scar tissue bulging.

“Oh.” Noctis swallows, a trembling hand reaching to touch the scar and sucking in air as if afraid even as he does it. He thinks of two things: the agony he felt as he sat on the throne and was impaled, one Arms after the other and then of returning from an empty, heavy void where his body jerked as if reliving that which had taken his life away once already, the pain just as torturous as the first time. “Yeah… Yeah, I guess it is…”

Prompto’s quiet at the affirmation but he’s still looking at him, his expression taken over by a thick cloud of grief. If Noctis is to remember one thing now, in this sluggish day that marks his rebirth, it’s that he _hates_ seeing that look on him.

“Hey,” he calls and he jerks a foot so he can kick at Prompto’s shin. Or he tries to; he tries to get his brain to send down the command but nothing happens but a small, insignificant swing, finished before it even starts. “Quit lookin’ like that.”

“Like what?” Prompto asks but his voice is light with distraction.

“Like it was you that did this.” Noctis licks his lower lip, brow furrowing at the ridges of dry, dead skin under his tongue. “Because… I-it wasn’t. You, I mean.”  
He leans forward a bit so Prompto’s eyes can look into his. “You couldn’ta done anything about it.”

Prompto scoffs a bit, turning away towards the curtained window as if calling forth all his wits for a good sarcastic remark. But it dies at the tip of his tongue, where a cemetery’s been made, over time, with things he should’ve and could’ve said but didn’t get to.

The door’s opened and their jerky, if perhaps a bit awkward, conversation’s over as Cor walks in after Gladio and Ignis.

It’s a stuffy meeting, one filled with questions Noctis can’t answer, with residual anxiety and guilt and not really any ounce of fulfillment. But at least he’s informed that, yes, the sun rises and sets and, yes, the people of Lucis, scarred as they are, live and hunger for the renewal that looms over them.

“That’s good,” Noctis had said and says once more as he’s left alone to rest. “Good.” His eyelids feel heavy and his body feels old and used in a way he doesn’t understand much less is able to explain. But he’s alive and he has a kingdom to find and pull out of the ashes. “This is good.”

 

-

 

Noctis sleeps a lot. More than when he’d been alive—or, _well_ , when he’d been alive the _first_ time. It’s a heavy sleep, one that’s sticky with fixing the inner workings of his very being. Like dusting out the cobwebs of a prophecy fulfilled and leaving empty spaces to be filled up with free will.

That’s what makes this so exhausting.

Noctis feels old and young all at once. He feels light and heavy—a complete contradiction. It’s _mind-blowing_ , numbing and, honestly, quite terrifying. 

He’s used to constraint. Of being told, _here_ , this is what is expected of him, _here_ , this is what he’s destined to do and, _here_ , this is the path he _must_ follow even if it leads to death.

But he’s done all that already. And, _here_ , this is his second chance. If it can even be called that, and who’s to say? Because there’s no one here to tell it, there are no ancient voices; there is no stone with his lifespan drilled into it so it can be unavoidable.

Now, there’s only freedom and Noctis feels lost.

So he sleeps, muscles remembering what it’s like to suck in oxygen, brain reconnecting with every nerve and vein inside of him, joints creaking out the rust.

“The sun is beautiful,” Ignis tells him precisely eight days after his reawakening. “I can’t see it,” and it’s said in a way that _drips_ a joke at his own expense, “but I can feel it.”

Noctis looks at him, exhausted as he sits up on the bed that’s his current prison.

“Some sunlight will do this room well, hm?”

“Specs,” Noctis starts, opening and closing his mouth as he tries to find the reason for calling out to him. “What do I do now?”

Ignis pauses at this, already turned to face him so Noctis can see the way his scars shift as he furrows his brow.

He can feign to have no idea what Noctis is referring to. It’s easy and Noctis has left plenty of room to guess. But Ignis isn’t one to pretend, much less, one to pretend to not know Noctis as well as he actually does.

“Well,” he tells him, lifting a hand up to adjust his glasses if only for the sake of the habit, “it looks like it’s finally up to you, Noct.”

At some point, he’s left alone. So far gone into his head, Noct doesn’t realize it until the door’s opened again and Prompto walks in, skin golden from being out in the sun and freckles darker to match. His hair’s windswept and his uniform’s messy, jacket unbuckled and half shrugged off already.

“Heyaz,” he says, his grin crooked and thin. And then his voice turns into a coo, “How’s my favorite boy?”

Noctis snorts, closing his gray-blue eyes as he sags on the bed, half lying down and half sitting up. “Shut up, loser.”

Prompto’s still grinning as he drops the jacket on top of some boxes in the corner and makes his way to open the window a bit. “Kinda stuffy, don’cha think?”

“Dunno,” Noct drawls. “Can’t really think of anything.”

“I mean, I know that…” They haven’t changed a single bit, Noctis thinks, rolling his eyes at the teasing. Prompto leans against the wall next to the window, arms crossed in front of him, a leg bent at the knee. “What’s got you goin’ now?”

Noctis shrugs a shoulder, looking away from him and trying to find the way to still sound casual. Maybe the empty walls know, maybe they have an answer, but who’s he kidding? They’re as empty as he feels.

“You know…” He trails off. “S’just…. I don’t _know_ what to do now. I mean… Becoming King and taking care of the country’s one thing but… What about underneath that? Not as _King_ Noctis, but as _Noctis_ … I don’t…” He sighs. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” Prompto begins, his expression serious. It’s not the one that Noct hates; it’s the one he admires. The one where his sharp eyes look sharper, his thin lips set in a neutral line, but unable to hide the ghost of the smile that’s always present. “What do _you_ wanna do?”

Noctis scoffs a bit, looking out the window. “No one’s ever asked me that before.”

And Prompto’s already opening his mouth to retort but Noctis shakes his head, his smile soft and weightless enough for the breeze trickling in to sweep off. 

“Except you,” he goes on. “No one’s asked me what I want except you.” 

“Yeah.” Prompto turns his head. His jaw’s sharp, cheekbones sharper and there’s freckles everywhere as if trying to soften him up. But Prompto’s already so soft, on the inside, Noct thinks. “So what do you wanna do?”

Noctis makes grabby hands towards him, deciding his idiot best friend’s way too far away from him, standing by the wall and taking in the breeze. Prompto raises an eyebrow but he nears him anyway, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Still too far,” Noctis just about whines. And what a ridiculous thing that is, a grown man of thirty, whining. 

But Prompto snorts and gets closer anyway, both ignoring his boots as he lies down next to him. Noctis rolls around, sprawling half of himself over Prompto, the way he used to when they were fifteen years younger. His lower half needs a bit of help and maybe Prompto’s as nostalgic as Noctis is, that he grabs Noct’s knee from the back and guides it to rest atop both of his.

It’s quiet then, at least, until Noctis mutters, “Maybe I’m not supposed to know.”

“Maybe not,” Prompto agrees. “No one knows _everything_.”

“Especially _you_.”

It’s a comeback for his last taunt. Prompto scoffs but he shifts so one of his legs slides in between both of Noct’s.

“Tch. I’ll have you know I know a few things.”

“And whassat?” 

But Prompto doesn’t answer and maybe they stay like that for a long while, like they’re back in Noct’s old apartment, hiding in his room and both pretending Noctis doesn’t have duties.

 

-

 

Noct’s legs start to function nearly one month and a half after his return. It’s a slow process because it tires him out; baby steps and this time it’s not just a dumb expression but, rather, a literal term.

He exercises by moving around the room he’s confined in. He opens and closes the curtains on his own now, and sometimes he opens the window a bit, sometimes he opens it fully, when the sun’s especially merciless as it rises up into the sky.

Gladio comes in the evenings to help him exercise the taut muscles, bending his knees and pushing his legs up and to his chest, as far as his hamstrings will let him go for now.

It’s a painful thing but at least Prompto shows up after, golden skinned and just a bit dirty with dust and other things from the rebuilding happening outside these four walls.

“I wanna go outside,” he decides one evening.

There’s no one there to keep him company except Prompto and Prompto’s always been a sucker for giving him everything he wants. So they get up from the bed and Prompto gives up his boots and wraps his Crownsguard jacket around Noct’s shoulders.

“Pretty neat that we’re still about the same size, huh?” he asks, grinning as Noctis reluctantly slides his arms into the sleeves.

“So now you’re jacketless _and_ barefoot.”

“Nah.” Prompto lifts a foot up, wiggles his toes. “Got socks on!”

But Noctis doesn’t say anything back. He’s excited and it shows in the way his heart drums in his chest, his eyes wide as Prompto leads him out the room, out the building and into the streets. Their elbows are locked the entire way, with Prompto’s steps slow and maybe even slower than Noctis needs. 

It’s cute though, Noct thinks, quietly missing the warmth and contact the second Prompto lets go.

The sky is full of stars and the moon is yellow and gorgeous. Noctis pauses for a moment to admire it, the first time he’s seeing it all again without having to feel like it’s the last.

The streets are empty and the reconstruction, the rebuilding, the restart of everything is evident. All the abandoned cars have been moved out of the streets, the rubble and brokenness has been picked up and moved along with it; Noct remembers hearing the machines at work, the orders being yelled but never _listening_ enough to make out what’s being said.

Noctis walks slowly, turning his head from one direction to the other, his breathing becoming more ragged the more he exerts himself.

“I always thought reconstruction would take years,” Prompto tells him, standing at his side and looking so vigilant and at the same time he looks so relaxed. “And I guess it will. But it feels like we’re moving fast and steady. S’pretty exciting.”

“Yeah,” Noct whispers, limping to a long, forgotten bus stop.

The glass of the little cubicle has been broken and shattered but the bones of it still stands and with it so do the seats. Noct takes one, slow in the way he sits down and sighing contentedly as Prompto sits next to him.

It feels like years ago, when they were still in high school, sneaking out of Noct’s apartment and stealing into the night—aimless and without a real purpose but to be out and watching the night claim Insomnia.

It feels like that. Except there’s no passing cars, no nightlife, no neon lights or people trickling in and out of places.

Now it’s just Noctis and Prompto, older than they’d been and exhausted in different ways. Noctis looks down at the way their thighs touch, Prompto’s jacket wrapped around him while Prompto lightly shivers at his side.

Noct leans into him, snaking his arm into the crook of Prompto’s so that they’re linked again and some of his and the jacket’s warmth curls around them both.

“Iggy and Gladio’ll probably kill me if they find out I brought you out,” Prompto chuckles.

“Probably,” Noct agrees, grinning when Prompto looks at him, wide eyed and horrified that he doesn’t promise to help if this comes to happen. “Thanks though… I—I needed this.”

“Yeah.” It’s a whisper.

Noctis looks into the night, catches a few lights filtering out of windows, promising that life still exists in his broken crown city. He looks up at the stars again, at the moon that makes him feel nostalgic for something else.

“Maybe…” He licks his lower lip. “Maybe Luna deserved this second chance more than I ever did.”

Prompto disentangles himself from him in one quick motion. No hesitation, no sluggish movement—just sharp and swift. Noctis turns to him and sees the incredulous fury in his expression, in his eyes that are more violet and lavender than blue in the dimmed lighting of the streets.

“Don’t say that,” he snaps. “I could punch you right now—I— _why_ would you even think that?” He lifts a hand to run fidgety fingers through his hair, pulling it all back from his face and not caring that it spikes up at different, messy angles. “M-maybe you both deserved a second chance. Maybe your dad did too but Noct… Don’t… Don’t you dare word it out to sound like it’s not okay for you to be here.”

Noctis swallows, grows stiff as Prompto lightly pats his hands to his bearded cheeks, fingertips pressed against the coarse hair lining his jaw. With his grip set, Prompto guides his head at an angle in which Noctis is looking directly at Prompto’s face, his eyes that are blown up in the dark.

“ _I’m_ glad you are,” he mutters, his brow furrowed and his expression pinched. “I… I bet Luna is too. It—it had to be you.” He closes his eyes and Noctis doesn’t realize he’s leaning into his touch. “You deserve this.”

Noctis is quiet and he lets Prompto cradle his face, nails pressing against his skin.

 

-

 

“Alright,” Gladio grunts and he pats at Noct’s knee as he leans back in his crouch. “How does that feel?”

Noctis looks down at his knee brace, at the familiar cool, metallic charcoal and the gold at the middle, where it’s supposed to bend along with his knee. It’s tighter than when he’d worn it before. He remembers it, despite it being the one time. Loose and a little heavy, more of an accessory than anything else.

Now, though, it’s tighter, pinching at his skin and the material of his pants in a comfortable sort of way. He stands up from the bed, a bit bent and a bit awkward, he wobbles for a second before he finds his balance and takes a step, two steps, and then full on out walks around the room.

The limp is still there, if only just lighter, less obvious. His knee still sparks with a soft, dull pain that’s made a home in between his bones but it’s _less_ and _better_.

“Feels about right,” Noctis comments, bending his legs into something like a crouch, or a squat. “At least I don’t need a cane.”

Gladio barks a laugh, effortlessly standing back to his towering height. He’s dressed in his uniform, his hair messily pulled back in that half-ponytail that’s working for him and he looks pleased, approving smile crooked on his lips.

“Guess we can go, then,” he drawls, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “If you think you’re up for it.”

Noctis spares him a glance from where he’s inspecting his clothes; an ensemble reminiscent to what he’d worn when he was twenty and didn’t know the level of _stressing_ his life really was going to be, despite having an inkling that it was going to. His kingly uniform has totally been ruined from their, ah, from when the sunrise was brought back. Ignis says he’ll find a seamstress or something to work on a new outfit to befit his status. 

Noct doesn’t think it’s important, but if it’s what Specs wants... 

“I _am_ up for it,” he belatedly replies, running a hand through his hair and wondering where he can find something to tie it back with. It’s starting to curl around his neck and the sun’s probably unbearable out there. “What kind of King would I be if my people are out there, working their asses off to rebuild while I’m here sitting on my own ass?”

Gladio’s grin widens but he doesn’t say anything to that, just watches him with that same pleased expression. Noctis feels the weight of his stare on him as he fixes himself up to be seen by the public eye. There was a time where he didn’t care about how he would be seen and true as that still remains, it’s different now.

He’s _king_.

Noctis pauses, turns to look at Gladio with a raised eyebrow. “What? Do I look like shit?”

“You have _no_ idea,” Gladio retorts but he’s snickering, shaking his head, brown hair falling over his shoulders, shorter strands falling into his eyes. “S’just that you’re finally thinking like a king. S’new.”

“Well, you were on my ass so much, I guess I learnt something.”

Gladio’s cackling again as he follows him out the door, closing it behind them with a strange kind of finality. Noctis inhales long and soft and lets it all back out just as long and just as soft.

Here’s the turning point, the ascertaining of his Return and the foundation of what will be his reign. It’s actually all so ludicrous; he wasn’t groomed for _this_. He wasn’t groomed _at all_ but in the little bits of royal upbringing that was engraved into him it’d been certain that it was for something Other and surely not _this_. 

Still, Noctis, despite being anxious and nervous, feels excitement knock into the knobs of his spine as he walks out into the morning sun to watch people from all over Lucis helping clean and rebuild.

Unsurprisingly they stop, one by one, two by two. They eye him, expressions surprised and filled with wonder. Gladio shadows him, a few paces behind, falling into his role of Shield and Protector without hesitance, as if thrilled that he gets a shot of doing what he’d trained most of his life to do. 

In the crowd, Noctis sees Prompto, jacket discarded and gloves dusty from lifting and moving rocks and boulders. He’s got a foot propped up on a rock, one hand on his hip and the other moving his hair out of his face, wiping sweat to leave a dirty smear across his forehead and shielding his eyes from the sun.

“ _King Noctis_!”

It’s like a chant, like a surprised utterance of his name. One after the other, a bow and another until everyone’s bent at the hip, heads dipped low, until Prompto’s the only one standing, near the far right, looking around with something like glee. Noct watches him as he turns to look right back at him, placing an open palm to his chest, to his heart, and bowing along with everyone else.

Noctis’ smile is small and maybe a little hesitant at the corners. But he lifts an arm up, hand closed into a fist and over his heart as he gives his people a low, elegant if not a bit awkward bow back.

“I’ve kept you all waiting long enough,” he tells them, finding no need to raise his voice in the utmost silence around him. “But I’m ready now.”

He’s not expecting the cheering and he flinches as it goes on, loud in the unity of the people in front of him. But he softens his exhausted features and gives one last bow before he starts to walk again.

Gladio follows him, the people returning to work with more vigor. Noctis walks and looks, calculating what progress has been made and where he can help. All the while, his feet are guiding him towards the Citadel, turning street corner after street corner, his steps slow and measured.

“Iggy’s waiting for us at the Citadel,” Prompto says as he falls into step with them. He’s smeared with dirt, dust and mud, his jacket slung over a shoulder, arms shining with a thin coat of sweat. “He’s been there since dawn, I think he’s there with the others.”

Noctis gives a curt nod and the three begin to make their way to the Citadel. It’ll be the first time he’ll see the place, the first time he’ll enter it without it having to be the very last.

Still, despite that it still carries a heavy load. It’s his father’s grave, his _own_ grave, if he’s to allow himself a moment of morbid thoughts. Gladio’s father died in there too; there are just so many _ghosts_ in the Citadel, Noctis almost wishes to tear it all down and rebuild it.

But he won’t. He can’t be that selfish and add another couple of years of rebuilding for the mere purpose of burying ghosts and demons. 

Noctis sighs heavily and he feels a bony elbow nudge at his side. Prompto’s looking at him already when he turns to him, a sort of expression on his face that Noctis can’t name but is familiar with. It’s the one he’d always give him when they were younger and Noct was just _tired_ and wanted to hide from the world.

He nudges him back, squaring his shoulders and walking tall as he enters his childhood home.

 

-

 

The hall is quiet as they all let the dispute settle in around them and the massive amount of surrounding space. They sit around a round table, Noctis at what would be the Head position, despite the equality a circle insinuates. Ignis sits at his left, Gladio at his right and Prompto next to him.

To fill in the rest of the table, people Noctis has worked with during his travels, ten years ago, sit among them. There’s Cor Leonis, a person Noctis finds to be an incredibly important person to his retinue, Iris Amicitia, Aranea Highwind, Cindy Aurum and the head of all hunters, Dave Auburnbrie. 

“Listen, I get the points you’ve made,” Aranea finally says, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms in front of her armored chest. “And I can agree with it. I’ve gone back to Niflheim before. In fact, I’ll go _again_. But I agree with the Marshal, Pretty Boy. Your people would do better with seeing _you_ than seeing us representatives running around.”

Ignis gives a tentative but still rather curt and firm nod of agreement. “Indeed, Majesty. I believe if it is _you_ that leaves the crown city to travel and see to the rest of Lucis, it’d motivate the people more.”

Noctis stares down at the table filled with papers, a hand holding at his elbow while the hand of the arm being held strokes at his beard. He finds it unfair to leave and travel while the others work. It’d feel like a vacation…

“If anything,” Prompto adds, licking at his lower lip, “you can stick around and help out at the stops you make. It’s a greater good, I think.”

Gladio remains quiet but he’s shaking his head, firm on his vote of trashing this plan.

Noctis looks up from his close inspection of the table, finds Prompto looking at him, just as the others are. He holds his look for a second, searching for a decision in the splatter of freckles across his cheeks.

“I don’t have a car,” he murmurs, but knows that Cindy will snort even before she does so, looking mildly, if not playfully, affronted. 

“Ya ain’t gotta worry ‘bout wheels, _Prince_ ,” she says, giving him a wink. “I got a li’l some’n for ya.”

Out of excuses, Noctis looks away from Prompto and closes his eyes, his hair falling into his face. There’s a moment of silence as they wait to hear what the king has decided on, considering the divide in the argument.

“Cor will go to Tenebrae and Aranea’s agreed to go to Niflheim. Then, I’ll need Ignis and Gladio to stay here and look over the crown city. Dave, if you’d take over the trip to Altissia…” Dave nods. “Cindy and Cid are taking care of Leide. Iris: Lestallum and the rest of Cleigne…" 

“You can’t be serious,” Gladio says as Noctis trails off. “A trip like this is going to exhaust you—let me go with you, if you’re going to do this.”

But Noctis shakes his head, turning to look at his Shield. “I need you here.”

Gladio looks as though he’d like to argue more about this but he refrains, closing his mouth and managing to keep his expression free of the annoyance Noctis knows he actually feels. But Noct, low and soft as his tone had been, left no room for argument.

So the meeting goes on, everyone present agreeing to the decisions and instructions King Noctis makes. There’s something in the way Noct talks and instructs, though, that seems as though he’s asking for permission, as if he’s _requesting_ rather than _demanding._ It’s an endearing little touch, one that wins his friends over, as if he hadn’t done so long ago.

By the end, Noct is taking slow and measured steps out the hall, shaking hands with Cor and Dave and awkwardly taking little moments to talk to Aranea and Cindy. He spends a bit of a longer time talking with Iris, letting her hold and squeeze his hand if only because she’s like his little sister and she must have been worried about him.

Ignis stays behind to finish some touches with Cor, Dave, Aranea and Cindy while Iris is swept away by Gladio. So Noctis isn’t surprised when Prompto falls into step with him, both staring at the afternoon sky and the slow descent of the sun.

“Ah, Noct?” Prompto asks, pausing at the beautiful stairs that lead up to the Citadel’s large doors. Noctis stops from taking a step down and turns to look back at him, head tilted. “S’just… you know…” He laughs, a bit high pitched in that way he used to when he was younger and feeling uncomfortable. “E-everyone’s got something to do and stuff and… Y’know…. I…. You didn’t say anything about me— _which is fine_! S’just… S’just…” 

Noctis blinks for a second and watches him, the fidgeting and bouncing on the balls of his feet, swaying from one side to the other and refusing to look at him. Prompto’s still got all his tics and the thing is that Noctis is _amazed_ that they still exist. He’d been fooled into believing his best friend’s overcome all his baggage. It makes Noct’s chest feel heavy. But despite that he laughs a bit, turning to face Prompto fully, hands on his hips.

“You loser,” he scoffs, smile slow and just a bit crooked. “Who do you think I want at my side while I’m out there?”

Prompto’s looking at him now, studying him, expression carefully blank. It takes a moment, but he grins, eyes crinkled at the corners. A second later he’s jogging to his side, pressing a closed fist to Noct’s arm and giving him a little, lighthearted shove.

“Hey, man, you’re the one that keeps making time for this loser.”

“Pfft,” Noct snorts, but he’s sincere as he adds a simple, “yeah.”

 

-

 

During the wait for Cindy to tow in the car she’s got prepared for him, Noctis interacts with his people. 

He helps in the continuous and ardent cleaning of the mess that Insomnia’d fallen into from the time of his very first departure all those years ago. He talks with the people, awkward as Noctis is, but he manages to laugh with some of the older folk, make them laugh with his inability to catch or understand innuendos and the sort. He sits around and eats with them, listening to their stories of the time of ruin.

His friends are sometimes amongst the crowd, eyeing him and his progress and picking and choosing when to join in, if only to let Noctis’ bond with the people he’s going to rule over grow.

But then Cindy arrives, her yellow tow truck both loud and quiet.

“She runs like a _champ_ ,” she tells them as she opens the driver’s door and jumps down. She grins at them, her green eyes bright under the sun. “Ol’ girl never let’s me down.”

“Who’d have the heart to let _you_ down, Cindy?” Prompto says, his flirting evident but also lighthearted and teasing.

Cindy aims a wink his way before having the four follow her around her truck and to the car it’s hauled from Hammerhead to here. “Now, this gal ain’t nothin’ like what she used to be,” she begins, a hand on her hip, “but I did the best I could. Guess even _my_ skills got their limit.”

Noct pauses as he stares. The car is sleek and black, scratched in some places and reflecting all the hits she’s received. Or maybe not. Maybe the scratches and the bumps are just ghosts that Noctis can see out of something like guilt.

“The Regalia?” Prompto asks, his voice soft.

Cindy cocks a hip out, looking at them with a sober expression, save for the curve of her mouth. “First time Aranea wennta scavenge Nif territory she recognized the ol’ girl. Contacted me right after. ‘course I got ‘er and ‘er friends to bring ‘er in. Been workin’ on ‘er in my spare time ever since.”

Noctis doesn’t reply, in fact, he barely hears her as he moves closer to the car. He looks at her, the top down and the dark leather seats smooth and clean. She looks… she looks just like she should, if not a bit banged up. But Noctis can’t tell if it’s all actually there or if it’s just his sight, his guilt, his _longing_ for his father that has him continuously envisioning the wreckage the Regalia’d become in Niflheim.

He breathes out through half-parted lips, shoulders sagging as he contemplates walking away without a word so he can gather himself in privacy. But then he thinks about that, thinks about giving himself that chance and what’ll actually happen. So Noct closes his eyes, reminds himself he has to move forward, not backward. The moment of breathlessness is gone in a flash and he exhales once again as he reaches out to touch the car, drag his fingers along her length.

Then, he turns to Cindy, pretends not to notice how she and Prompto and Ignis and Gladio watch him carefully, as if he’ll break. He whispers, “Thank you.”

Cindy is quiet as she continues to watch him, unabashed in how she picks him apart with calm apathy and gentle concern. But then she grins, her eyes brightening again as she gives a curt nod, “Can’t have a king if he ain’t ridin’ in style, don’cha think?”

Noctis smiles soft and distracted. There’s a memory his brain is overexerting itself to bring up. Or perhaps not overexerting; no, that’s so wrong. He’s never had to think so hard to remember it. It’s always present, Noctis reminds himself, that time the Regalia rolls up to the front of the Citadel, doors opening and his father stepping out with wide, open arms ready to receive him in a hug. 

“Heh,” Noct laughs, shaking his head.

“So,” Prompto drawls, stepping up next to him, his grin nice and his eyes shining. “When do we leave?”

“Right now, if you wanna,” Noct says with a grin that can actually pass off as mischievous.

“Now wait just a moment,” Ignis quickly intervenes, stepping forward and pointing a finger in their direction. Specs keeps his severely scarred eye closed but his other unseeing eye manages to reflect his disapproval, scarred eyebrows furrowed and his just as scarred lips set in a frown. “I’m seeing the need to bring up what this trip is for.”

“You _saw_ your chance to be _terrible_ ,” Prompto manages to say in between a laugh.

Ignis sneers as he shifts in his stance, strands of sandy hair falling over his forehead and into his eyes. He has his coat unbuttoned, the neck of it primly folded and the sleeves long and clear of wrinkles. But he’s got some dirt spotting around here and there, his boots dusty and his fingertips caked with a bit of mud. He points his finger again and Noctis lifts an eyebrow, lips quirking into a smirk.

“This trip is beneficial to your campaign, Noct—“

“ _What_ campaign?” Noct asks in a drawl, rolling his eyes and feeling young again. It’s a light feeling; one that he knows will pass and taking its place will be that dread and thick, sticky feeling of confusion. But for now it’s here, present, reminding him of their old dynamics, when Noct had never died or gone away for ten years, when Ignis could still see and Prompto and Gladio weren’t this jaded. “I’m already seen as King—“

“ _Listen_ ,” Ignis hisses but Noctis laughs and reaches over to place a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s alright, Specs, I _get it_.” He rolls his eyes again. “I know what I have to do.”

Ignis sighs, making strained noises and perhaps cursing under his breath as he waves Noctis’ arm away. 

“Told ya we should’ve sent someone else,” Gladio comments, arms crossed. He turns his bright amber eyes towards Prompto. “Why’s _he_ going with you? Should be taking me— _I’m_ your Shield.”

“Relax, big guy,” Noct coolly replies. He mimics him, crossing his arms in front of his chest and leaning closer towards Prompto but never looking away from Gladio. “I’m gonna be as safe as ever with this guy at my side.”

Prompto snickers, rubbing at the back of his neck.

 

-

 

Leide is still a desert.

It’s still dry, the heat almost sweltering. They arrive long after the sun has set, the sky a dark violet and the stars like sand stretching across and beyond.

Noctis closes the car’s door and leans against it, sighing and pushing the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbow as he observes the darkness, the collection of boulders that clutter together at different spots, like desert flowers.

“It’s so gross and hot here,” he mutters, running his hands through his hair, following the strands up to where they curl at his neck. “I’m sticky with sweat.”

“Ya big baby,” Prompto teases despite already shrugging his Crownsguard jacket off. “C’mon, let’s go see if old man Cid’s still awake. We can rent the caravan after.”

“The fact that it’s still _there_ ,” Noctis says as he peels away from the car and begins to walk around the gas pump and towards the garage. He looks over his shoulder at the caravan, looking at it like the ghost it is and the memories it holds.

The last time he’d been here, it was supposed to be his last. With barbed metal fences surrounding the diner and Hammerhead, hunters everywhere and boxes with guns of all kinds and ammunition stacked around to target the daemons circling the perimeter like predators.

All that’s gone now, though if he tries, Noct thinks he’ll be able to see where the fences dug into the dirt. Now, there’s just Takka’s place and old Hammerhead, the caravan not far off and few stragglers still roaming around before continuing their journey.

Like nothing happened.

He did this, he can’t help but think. This has all become possible because of him. Noctis swallows and looks away, just as the bright lights of the garage reach his limping form, the inside just visible and Cindy’s yellow pickup truck shadowed at the corner further in.

“Knock, knock,” Prompto sings as he strolls right in.

“Agh,” someone groans with reproach, but far too fond sounding to be just that. “And here I thought I wasn’t gonna ever hav’ta hear that voice again.”

Prompto laughs and steps further into the garage, as if it’s home or something. Noct observes him, following him in and avoiding the car parts thrown around.

“Aw, c’mon Cid, you don’t mean that.”

Cid looks far older than ever, hair more white than gray now, trucker hat still in place, back bent a bit even as he eyes them both from the shadow of his hat’s rim.

“Eh?” he grunts again. “S’that ol’ Reggie… Ah, no. ‘Course not.” He laughs bitterly, coming closer, his eyes on Noct. “S’the Prince, huh? You ain’t no Prince anymore, tho, huh?”

“Guess not,” Noctis replies, shrugging a shoulder and standing still as he’s picked apart.

“Sure look like ‘im now,” Cid says. “Got the whole beard and long hair thing yer ol’ man was sportin’.”

Noct chooses to stay quiet, his heart suddenly heavy and his thoughts heavier. But Cid comes closer, close enough to circle him, his eyes still tearing him apart and putting him back together. He doesn’t stop until he’s right in front of him again, lifting his hat up enough so his wrinkled face isn’t shadowed anymore. 

“Ain’t that some shit,” he finally sighs.

It sounds a lot like approval.

Noct exhales, never realizing he’d stopped until that very second when he lets his shoulders sag and his back relax. He crosses his arms in front of his chest, dips his head down so his hair falls over his face. “Cid, I—“

“Ain’t gotta say a damn thing, yer Majesty,” Cid interrupts. “Ya did what ya had to do. ‘n you still here, huh?” He does a scoffing noise, one that’s more like a chuckle than anything else. “He’d be proud. Probably is, that ol’ Reggie.” He changes his expression, then. Looking much like the old Cid he’d met ten years ago. “There’s lotsa work to be done around these parts. Hope yer new crown ain’t makin ya feel too good for some good ol’ labor.”

“Not at all,” Noct tells him, cheeks flushed.

“Hey, what am I? Chopped liver?” Prompto cuts in, coming closer and wrapping an arm around Cid. It doesn’t take long for the older man to shrug him off, looking at him with incredulity. Prompto laughs, as if used to the whole thing and Noctis can’t help but grin at the interaction.

“How’s about ya go to sleep ‘fore I _put_ ya to sleep?” Cid sneers. “Got a busy day tomorrow. Don’t think I’m cuttin’ you any slack. Get outta here.”

“What, no bedtime story?” Prompto asks and yelps as he scurries off just as Cid reaches for a crowbar. 

They walk towards the caravan together, the sky much darker and the moon much brighter. The heat hasn’t let up and the caravan is like a furnace as they step inside, unsurprised by the dust and grime.

“Least the sheets are clean,” Prompto comments as he sits at the edge of the bed at the very back of the trailer. He unlaces his boots and kicks them off, peels his gloves off and lifts his shirt up and off his body. 

Prompto doesn’t hide his barcode anymore. Noct’s noticed this long ago, back when they marched to their final fight with Ardyn. But where would he have gotten the time to comment on it, then? And now, after waking up again—he noticed it too but…

But Noct’s mind has been a mess of knots. Doubt and confusion, emptiness he can’t seem to find the way to fill. The fact that his best friend’s open about this, about where he comes from—it’s slipped in between the cracks until this very moment, where he sees it in the caravan’s dingy lighting.

Noct sits next to him, clothes still in tact. He reaches for Prompto’s wrist, feeling the soft skin even underneath the scars from a long war that’s finally over, fights that Noctis may or may not know the story to.

“Noct—“

He flips Prompto’s wrist, for once ignoring the constellation of freckles on pale skin and looking at the ink-black on his wrist.

“You don’t cover it anymore,” he comments, voice soft.

“What’s the point?” Prompto asks but by holding onto him, Noct can feel the way he’s stiffen. “Iggy and Gladio know now and so does Cor. And Cindy and Cid. Iris… You.”

“Yeah?” Noct looks up at him, his thumb subconsciously running across the thin and thick lines. “But are you still ashamed?”

Prompto opens and closes his mouth, his brow furrowing. He even tries to pry his wrist out of Noct’s grip but is unable to. 

“Thought so,” Noct grins, all sharp and too shallow to reach his eyes. “Listen, I said once that I would break the borders and unite all nations. I still wanna do that. I _will_ do that. There’s just. So much shit I have to sort through. Prom—“

“Noct,” Prompto laughs, awkward but bubbly with affection. “What the hell’s got you going on about this?”

Noct shrugs a shoulder, letting go of Prompto’s wrist and beginning to undress enough to sleep comfortably. “That’s my best friend you’re ashamed of. Kinda pisses me off.”

“Dude.”

“If I can’t feel like I don’t deserve to be here, then you can’t feel ashamed of being who you are. _Or_ where you come from.”

Silence falls over them, then. Prompto’s watching him; Noctis can feel the weight of his stare on him, on the deep and thick scar tissue that lives at his back and chest, parallel to each other.

Everything about him is different; scattered and lost. He keeps trying to work through it all, pausing halfway through to work at other bits. He’s everywhere and nowhere at all; he’s stagnant and it’s bothering Noct so much. He’s used to following where he’s been pointed to.

Now here he is, doing the pointing and the decisions, moving freely but not so much. Time has passed, between his reawakening to now. He can’t even think about how long exactly, just that it’s there, a fact. He’s been alive again and he hasn’t caught up with everything that his friends are, how they got to this point, what they did in his time away.

It’s evident and glaring in how familiar Prompto is with Cid.

“You’re close with Cid,” he says, slow and drawling with hesitance rather than his usual front of disinterest.

“Pfft, I can hardly call it that,” Prompto laughs as he climbs further onto the stiff bed, claiming a side and punching the pillow into feigned softness. “I lived here,” he says, much softer and sober. “During the Darkness.”

The folks working on rebuilding Insomnia call it the Time of Ruin. They described it as total darkness—pitch black everywhere save for where the moon penetrated, the only light they could see.

“I didn’t think I could be anywhere else—not in Lestallum,” Prompto laughs a bit. “Everyone wanted to be in Lestallum; there were lights everywhere there. But here… there was nothing here, Noct. Just. Just _this_ old trailer, the diner and Hammerhead. And the daemons were everywhere. I was needed here. It was. It was more comfortable here.”

Silence falls over them again, like a blanket that covers them as they lie in bed. Noct stares at the darkness, the particles of dust dancing in the air that are only clear because of the moon sneaking and filtering in through the messily curtained little window.

“Sorry,” he finally mutters, when he thinks Prompto’s far off into sleep. “I’m a shitty friend. Should have asked before. Long time go.”

Prompto shifts, a leg entangled with both of his. “Dude. Some stuff isn’t worth knowing about. They say the past is the past. So now we’re here, right?”

Noct doesn’t say anything to that, but he drapes an arm across Prompto’s waist, messy and familiar, and falls asleep.

 

-

 

Work in Leide includes rebuilding, much like in Insomnia.

They’re building a small cabin right now, one that’s roof had broken or was broken. Different meaning, that’s what Cid said. To had broken means it’d broken on its own, with time as its only enemy. To _be_ broken. Well. That means the daemons did it.

“At this point, I’m considering becoming an architect,” Noct mutters, rubbing sweat off his brow and glaring up at the clear blue sky. “It’s damn hot.”

“Construction worker,” Prompto says from up top where he works to nail and drill the planks up.

“What?” 

“You mean a construction worker,” Prompto elaborates. “Architect designs the buildings. Construction workers build ‘em.”

Noctis scoffs. “Smartass.”

“Dude, don’t _wobble_ the ladder like that!”

 

-

 

It all slowly becomes monotonous and monochrome. Repetitive.

Noctis almost wishes there were still daemons around to fend off. There are garulas and coeurls but he doesn’t think it’s the same. Not when the beasts don’t try to start a fight unless feeling threatened.

It’s all the same: building and rebuilding, painting and going off to look for this and that. Leide is a desert with little populace. There’s nothing much to do and what there is is because no one’s around to do it but them.

But the repetition dies down a few days after coming to Leide, after the cabin and little ranch houses they’ve helped rebuild and paint. They’re coming back from a quick hunt that Takka’s sent them off on; some vegetables that Noct doesn’t want to even touch so he has Prompto carrying them.

It’s a cry.

A wail, really.

They both pause from their trek, their conversation of whether or not the coeurl that passed them had blood in its snout or not coming to a halt as they listen. It’s a fussy sound, hiccupping and screeching with anger.

Noctis looks around, his eyes gray and blue and bright in the daylight. “Is that…?”

Prompto moves first, following the crying towards a cluster of boulders. He circles around it, only stopping to drop the crate with vegetables. He disappears out of sight and Noctis only begins to move faster, jerky as he does, when Prompto cries out for him.

“You gotta see this,” he says, his voice hitched with nerves and anger and sadness.

What Noctis finds upon reaching him is his best friend cradling a bundle in his arms. He feels his heartbeat escalate, opening his mouth but unable to say a thing.

“It’s okay little buddy,” Prompto coos, swaying from side to side and bouncing his arms until the bundle stops fidgeting and Noct can see little chubby arms reaching out in attempts to touch Prompto’s face.

Noct turns away and inspects their surroundings, seeing nothing but desert and boulders.

“I told you it was blood,” Prompto says.

“Is it really the time to pick that debate—“ Noct stops and looks at him. _Really_ looks at him. His expression hard and his jaw set. “No.”

“It makes _sense_ ,” Prompto says. “That fucking coeurl did something to this baby’s mom. Or parents. I don’t. I don’t wanna know, actually. I really don’t.”

“Why would they be _here_ in the middle of _nowhere_?”

“Noct—it’s the new Dawn! People are trying to find a place here after everything! Maybe they were… Maybe they were passing through!” Prompto quiets down, swallowing as he looks down at the baby in his arms. “Maybe they were trying to get to Insomnia.”

Noctis places a hand at his hip, the other one running through his hair as he tries to come to terms with all of this. He turns around in place, eyes searching for any movement in the plains.

Noct moves closer towards Prompto, peering down and looking at the little baby girl in his arms. Green eyed and chubby cheeked, the baby gurgles as she drools and continues to try and reach for Prompto’s face.

“She doesn’t like your little goat chin,” Noct manages to say, hesitating in reaching over to touch a shiny cheek.

“Hey, do you know how long it took me to grow this out?”

“Ten years for that little thing?”

“ _Listen_.” 

Noct smirks, giving their surrounding another once over before he picks the crate of vegetables up and leads them both out of the clutter of boulders. “C’mon.”

Prompto readjusts the baby in his arms, grinning down at her as a means of reassurance. Noctis thinks about this, thinks about going off to find some sign of the child’s parents but thinks better about it. What’ll he find? Half eaten-corpses? It’s better like this, he thinks. 

“We can stay and wait to see if her parents show up,” he says as Hammerhead comes into view in the distance. “It’s the best we can do for now.” 

“And if they don’t?” Prompto asks, shifting her again so that this time she’s resting against his shoulder, a gloved hand on her back to keep her from bending back.

“Then we take her,” Noct says. “Lestallum has an orphanage.”

Prompto nods his head, blond hair shifting as a rare breeze blows by.

They walk in silence afterwards, the only sound the fussy sounds of the baby as she moves and writhes, curving her tiny body and flails her chubby arms. Prompto unwraps the white sheets that bundle her up, leaving her in the clothed diaper pinned to her bottom half.

Noct would ask his best friend when he’d get so good with little babies, but that’d imply he doesn’t know his best friend for what he is: a soft hearted fool. Noctis knows this part of Prompto, the part that likes children and wants nothing more but the absolute best for them, if only because he’s regretful of his own childhood and the way he’d been brought up, or lack thereof.

“Wha’cha got there?” Cindy asks when they make their way over.

“A baby,” Prompto replies. “Found her hidden in between some boulders.”

“We’re thinking a coeurl killed her parents,” Noctis adds. “There’s no sign of any other person out there.”

Cindy purses her lips, brow furrowed and expression soft and sad as she leans closer to look at the baby. “Poor lil thing,” she coos. She inspects her, leaning closer and letting the little girl pat her tiny hands to her cheeks, tiny fingers touching dirty-blond curls. “You’re from Galahd, ain’t ya, girlie? Yes you are, uh-huh, you are.”

“How do you know that?” Prompto asks, shifting the baby so she’s facing him, blinking his violet-blue eyes and grinning as the baby squeals with some kind of delight. 

“Lotsa folks from Galahd got the olive skin goin’,” Cindy explains. “They see more of the sun than we do here. Those pins on her diaper are from Galahd, too. Seen ‘em on some other baby the other day, passing through with his momma. Headin’ to Lestallum, they were.”

“Hear that, Noct?” Prompto laughs. “Our girl here’s from Galahd.”

Noct moves closer, inspecting the little girl and growing wide-eyed as she scrunches her face up upon seeing him, making little noises that sound like a promise for a good, loud cry.

Prompto laughs, shifting around so she’s not looking at Noct anymore. “Your ugly face freaks her out, Noct!” 

“Oh screw you,” Noct mutters as he makes his way to the little gas mart in search for some milk and anything remotely similar to a baby’s bottle.

 

-

 

The baby has a schedule.

She wakes up just _once_ during the early morning, at three-twenty-six to be exact. She’ll screech until either Prompto or Noct manage to wake up and stay awake long enough to feed her. She’ll stay awake until she relieves herself and won’t sleep until they change her diaper.

It’s… definitely _not_ what Noctis nor his court had in mind when the decision’d been made to have the King of Lucis travel around his country in the aid of his people and the rebirth of their home.

They leave Leide four days after finding the baby, both men staring at the Regalia and back at the baby as they wonder what the arrangements to their trip are now that they have a third party.

“I can sit with her in the back,” Noctis suggest, hands on his hips as he peers over at the little girl.

She screeches and Prompto cackles as he moves her away from Noct’s line of sight. “Doubt that’s gonna be a good idea, dude.”

“Why the hell is she so afraid of me?” Noct pouts, limping his way to the driver’s seat as Prompto moves to the back.

“Probably the beard and the long hair. Makes you look like a hobo. She’s probably scared of hobos. You don’t know her life, Noct, jeez.” Prompto is enjoying this far too much and it makes Noctis all the grouchier as he drives off to their next destination.

The rides are uneventful but long, considering they have to stop whenever the little girl has to be changed or when she’s grown annoyed with being held in the same position for so long.

Noctis holds her only when she sleeps and gives her back just as she’s stirring awake again.

They receive a call from Ignis just as they’ve booked a room at Longwythe’s inn. Noctis looks at the caller ID for a long time before he answers, his blue eyes trained on Prompto as he plays with the little girl.

“Why is it that I’ve heard news of the King traveling with an infant?” 

Noct rolls his eyes a bit and laughs when the little girl screeches with laughter upon having her belly tickled by Prompto. “We found her when we were out doing a hunt for Takka. Her parents got eaten, we’re guessing.”

“I see,” Ignis drawls. “Gruesome indeed.”

“We’re taking her to Lestallum,” Noctis explains. “Leave her in that orphanage Iris mentioned.”

“A wise decision,” Ignis agrees. “What is her name?”

Noctis pauses for a second as he thinks about this. They haven’t really referred to her as anything but ‘the baby’ or ‘the girl’ and it’s never crossed Noct’s mind that she may have had a name they’ll never know of and should probably name her.

“I…guess we should give her one, huh?”

“I suppose you should,” Ignis says. “How is the traveling going? How do you feel?”

“Everything’s going fine,” Noctis replies, shifting on the bed and eyeing Prompto as he carries the baby to the window. “We’ve helped as much as we could in Hammerhead. Gotta see if we’re needed here in Longwythe.”

The rest of the conversation goes as such, both reporting in on how progress is going and satisfaction at the results so far. Ignis doesn’t hang up until he reminds Noctis that the child deserves a name and that leaves Noct in a pensive state.

“Hey,” he calls out, distracted. “Ignis says we should name her.”

Prompto turns away from the window to face him, the little girl seated on one of his forearms and kept upright with his other arm wrapped around her from the front. Her chubby bare feet dangle, tiny toes wiggling as she gleams, grin wide and toothless.

“Jeez, I didn’t think about that,” Prompto confesses. “I was thinking about where we’re gonna leave her while we work tomorrow.”

“Shit, that’s something else to think about,” Noctis agrees, stroking his beard and quietly admiring how she keeps looking at him without doing that thing where she wants to cry.

He doesn’t mention it, though, lest he jinxes it.

They spend the rest of the evening throwing out names. They think of lists during their individual showers, during their takeout meal from The Crow’s Nest, while putting the little girl to sleep and while lying in bed, limbs sprawled and tangled together, careful not to squish the little girl sleeping in between them.

“Okay, let’s pick this back up tomorrow,” Noct finally says. “I’m tired of you throwing out the names of all the girls you had a crush on in high school.”

 “ _Hey_ ,” Prompto hisses.

They grow quiet after and it’s a nice lull, the humming of the AC, the faint noise of conversation out the window. The little girl sighs every so often as she sleeps, turning her head and flailing her little arms.

This is probably the most… _good_ Noctis has felt since his reawakening, Being with his friends and seeing his home is one thing but _this_ is giving him some kind of purpose. Not just rebuilding and seeing to the people of Lucis’ needs, but this tiny thing of a little girl. 

He finds himself thinking: gotta feed her, gotta change her, she needs a shower, this is too dangerous. It’s been a week at most and most often Noctis feels the negative feelings creeping in, trying to swallow him but. This is _nice_.

This is _good_.

“Remember the last time we were here,” Prompto finally croaks.

Noctis stops his weird thoughts and thinks, remembers sitting at the roof and remembers Prompto coming in to join him. The conversation in full is a blur but Noctis can’t ever forget the point; Prompto feeling insecure and out of place has always been something Noct’s tried to fight off but it’s hard to fight a battle that’s not entirely his.

“Yeah,” he whispers.

They’re quiet again and like this they fall asleep.

 

-

 

Galding Quay is a disaster despite the time that’s passed since the new Dawn. Noctis feels his heart squeeze in his chest as he stands in the sand, staring at how destroyed the resort is. Coctura says there’d been corpses, earlier, in the first few days of the Sunrise.

“It’s the first thing that we moved,” she tells them, bouncing the little girl in her arms. “For a while, the shore kept bringing in dead fishes, too. Some of the men have gone out in boats to clean as much as possible.”

Noctis presses his lips together, turning to look at Prompto for a second before he returns his attention to all the work that needs to be done.

“D’you mind taking care of her?” Prompto asks, reaching out just as the little girl reaches out to him. “While we try to help out here.” 

Coctura grins at him and nods her head. “Sure! I wouldn’t mind getting a moment of glory by babysitting the King’s ward.”

Noctis snorts as he shoves his sleeves up his elbows. “Is that how we’re seeing it?”

“Is she your daughter, then?” Coctura asks, a glint in her brown eyes.

Noctis grumbles.

“She doesn’t even have a name.” 

Coctura turns away from them, shifting the little girl to her hip. “Get to it then, Your Majesty.”

 

-

 

They stay in Galdin for more than a week, cleaning out the shore, moving broken parts of what used to be the resort, fixing the docks and cleaning out the beach of enormous crabs with a penchant for violence.

One night, Noctis sits at the docks, his shoes off and his feet just brushing the surface of the water. He stares off into the distance, where the indigo sky and the dark-blue of the sea blur into one.

The breeze is cool and it ruffles his messy long hair, gooseflesh prickling his skin.

He still has to wear his knee brace, his limp so obvious if he ever chooses to go on without it. The thick scarring on his back and chest ache sometimes, like a phantom sort of pain. It all makes him think of how overused his body is, how it shouldn’t be functioning and that, for a few days, he’d been a corpse.

He doesn’t get to think about it too much right now, considering his journey and the handfulness he has with the little girl he and Prompto have found.

But in stolen moments like this, it seeps in, like waves at the shoreline. He feels the thick hopelessness he’d felt when he’d been imprisoned in that room, the inability to get that this is all on him now, that there’s no one around to tell him what to do anymore.

It makes him question his every move despite the deep desire to look and feel certain of what he comes to decide. He pretends that he’ll get better at it with time, with adjusting. But it’s been _months_.

“Heyaz,” Prompto greets as he plops down next to him, grunting as he shifts and gets comfortable and sighing when he does so. “Wha’cha doin’ here, buddy?”

Noct turns to him, watching the breeze ruffle his carefully groomed blond hair, the little bush of hair at his chin, the curve of cheek stained with freckles, the button nose.

“Just thinking,” he finally answers. “About all this.”

“What’s ‘all this’?" 

Noctis shrugs. “It’s… It comes back, the thoughts of me being here. I don’t mean for it but they _do_ , and sometimes it’s just hard to accept. I wasn’t supposed to get this far.”

“Yet here you are,” Prompto says and he chuckles a bit. He turns to face him and for a second they just stare at each other.

Noctis thinks about how they got to talking, how they started off for the second time. Not when they’d been kids and Prompto tripped and fell in front of him, rather when they were older and Prompto wrapped an arm around his shoulders like he’d belonged there at his side.

“You think we’re doing good?” he asks and he feels outright stupid seconds after asking.

Prompto looks at him for a bit longer before he dips his head a bit. “Hell yeah.” He grins, thin lips stretched. “We said we’d do it together, right? Make the world a better place. I think we’re finally getting to that.”

They’re quiet after this and Noctis dips his toes into the water, wiggling them and liking the cool feeling the water brings. He leans back, weight kept upright by his arms, eyes trained to the distance.

“How do you do it?” he asks.

“What?”

“Function, despite all the doubt,” he turns to him. “I used to be able to do it too but… I guess it’s too much and I’m too tired.” 

Prompto licks his lips and runs a hand through his hair. “I guess at some point you gotta say fuck it and accept it’s a part of you.”

“So you’ve accepted it?”

“I guess so.”

Noct turns to look at the makeshift housing that’s been erected for the people working on rebuilding Galdin.

“You’ve helped a lot in that…” Prompto continues, more hesitant. “In accepting it.”

“Yeah?”

Prompto grins, flush almost lost in the night sky. “Yeah.”

Noct laughs a bit and shifts again. “You’re helping me now.”

They look at each other for a second before they burst into laughter, shoving at each other playfully before they settle down. Noctis is leaning his back against Prompto’s arm, a leg propped up on the edge of the dock, the other dipped into the water. They exhale the salty air, appreciating the comfortable silence around them.

“Coctura’s got the baby,” Prompto says. “Should’ve mentioned that before.”

“I figured,” Noct replies.

“Jeez, we really gotta settle on a name for her,” Prompto just about whines. “I hate just calling her all these little pronouns and stuff.”

“Maybe the orphanage will name her,” Noctis suggest, even if he knows that Lestallum’s probably going to be one of their last stops before returning to Insomnia.

Prompto doesn’t answer for a long moment before he mutters a gloomy, “Yeah.”

 

-

 

Duscae’s a lot cooler than Leide so they have to buy the little girl actual clothes instead of carrying her around in her diaper.

Of course, Prompto buys her chocobo-themed clothes at Wiz’s place. Noctis thinks she looks both adorable and ridiculous, wearing a little chocobo beanie, a yellow little shirt with a chocobo’s face printed at the front and actual little sandals that squeak when she flails her feet and bump them together.

“You’re terrible,” Noctis says, taking her from Prompto’s grip and stiffening when she threatens to cry. But she relaxes, her hands finding Noct’s beard and pulling enough to get him to yelp.

“She definitely doesn’t like you,” Prompto laughs, peering down at her from over Noct’s shoulder. “Right, lil cutie?”

She coos at him and Noctis can’t believe he’s _jealous_.

He doesn’t say anything about it, much less makes it known. He does carry her for the majority of the day, as they both listen to Wiz and gather what needs to be done during their stay.

They leave their little girl with Wiz and his staff as they head into the woods, finding stray chocobos and catching eggs before any predator can get to them. This is harder than what they’ve been up to and it’s not til well into the night that they return to their rented caravan, muddied and gross, some scratched here and there from running through bushes and the sort.

They don’t say a thing but it’s an agreement to leave her with Wiz for the night and as they lie on the caravan’s uncomfortable bed, clean from the grime and sweat, they both catch themselves moving to give space at the middle, their legs tangled and bent awkwardly at the hip.

“Wow it feels weird without her,” Prompto comments.

“Yeah,” Noct agrees but says nothing else.

The following morning, they come into contact with a pack of voretooth. Noctis reaches deep within himself, trying to find the space the Crystal’s once granted him and almost falling to his knees in pain as he manages to pull out his father’s sword.

He’s sweating and heaving but ignores it as he lifts the blade up to block a voretooth that’s pounced his way. He grits his teeth and shoves him off, willing himself to stand back up and attack.

There are shots from somewhere behind him and Noct manages a bit of confidence, swinging his blade with the intentions to end this quickly. He’s breathing hard, though, his bad knee pulsing despite his knee brace.

“Noct!” Prompto shouts and grabs his hand, swinging him out of harm’s way and twisting to shoot at the beast Noct’d missed.

Noctis kneels and watches Prompto finish them all off before returning to his side.

“Dude?”

“The Armiger doesn’t really exist anymore,” Noctis gasps. “I forced something to get my dad’s sword. I’m—I’m fine.”

“No.” Prompto looks worried and angry all in one. “No we’re going back. No work for today. I’m not risking this.”

“Prom—“

“ _No_ , Noct.” Prompto slides an arm around his waist, guides Noct’s arm around his shoulders to help him up. “I’m not just your best friend here, I’m your Glaive, too. So I say _no_.”

Noctis sleeps for the rest of the day and not even their little girl’s screeches manages to wake him up.

 

-

 

In Cleigne, they grow more wary and far more clingy to the child traveling with them.

They try their best to do their work fast, wishing to stay with her as much as possible the closer they get to Lestallum. It’s a subtle shift but one Noctis knows they both catch. 

They act different too, with each other. Prompto’s a lot more attentive, hovering even to the point where Noctis has to pause to look at him with an expression that says it all.

He doesn’t mind the touching, he comes to realize. Prompto’s fingers grazing at his elbow, hands grabbing his forearms, bumping into each other. It’s another shift that they both may or may not have taken notice to but don’t mention.

“Aurelia,” Noctis says one day when they sit on the ground of an inn.

“Hm?” Prompto hums as he takes his time to look up at him, distracted as he is with the way the baby rolls around on the ground. They haven’t been able to guess her exact age, but it’s clear she’s closer to a year than she is to being a newborn.

“Her name,” Noctis elaborates. “It should be Aurelia.”

He almost thinks Prompto’s going to ask where it’s coming from, something Noct doesn’t have an answer to. He just knows he likes this name and with the way the girl gives them wide and bright, toothless smiles, it fits.

But Prompto doesn’t ask questions, just shifts to sit up next to him, their shoulders brushing.

“Aurelia, then.”

She rolls over to bump into Noct’s thigh and he smiles softly, his hair messily pulled back for once, shorter strands framing his face. Aurelia looks up at him, her eyes sea green and her skin tanned.

They’re off to Lestallum tomorrow morning and they’ll have to give her away to the orphanage. The thought makes Noct’s heartbeat pick up, reaching towards the baby and bringing her close.

“This,” he mutters and pauses as he tries to understand what exactly his point is.

Prompto’s looking at him, their eyes locking and Noct’s heartbeat picking up all the more. He doesn’t say anything but he swallows hard and Noct thinks of that patch of freckles at the right of the bump at his throat, like starburst. He blinks hard and convinces himself to keep the lock between their stares.

“I wanna do this,” he tells him, hands shaking despite holding on to Aurelia. “Ignis said it was my time to choose… I… I choose this.” 

“What is this?” Prompto asks.

Noctis swallows and licks his lips, looking down at Aurelia as she bounces up and down as he holds her up in a standing position, her feet plopped on the ground. She has her left hand in her mouth, drool dripping onto the ground.

“Aurelia,” he says, “Us taking care of her. S-she likes us. She likes _you_ and I think she’s right in that. I mean. She won’t be okay in the orphanage with people she doesn’t know. She… she knows us. And.” Noctis sighs and looks up at Prompto. “S-she can come home with us and. And we can help her. Together and stuff.”

Prompto is quiet for a long time, distractedly reaching towards the little girl, letting her wrap her hand around one of his fingers.

“You want this.”

“I want this,” Noctis stresses. “Prom, I’m a fucking mess, like, sometimes I get lost in my head and sometimes I get _owned_ by this _guilt_ but. But finding Aurelia and being with you makes it better and it’s not. I. I just think. I want this.”

He’s nervous and anxious and he has to convince Prompto. It’s fine if he doesn’t _get_ that _maybe_ they can be more than just best friends, than king and glaive, that maybe it’s there, untouched because they keep dancing around it, slow and cautious, unable to get themselves to wake those feelings up.

But at least they can have Aurelia stay with them. At least _that_.

“Okay,” Prompto says and Noctis searches his freckled face, his brow furrowed and his lips parted.

Prompto gives him one glance and he’s laughing, taking Aurelia from him and bumping their shoulders together.

Yes this, he thinks as he watches Prompto raise her up into the air, relief washing over him like a hurricane. Noctis wants to do this.

“I want to do this to,” Prompto tells him, his smile crooked and one that Noctis knows he’s received more than once, jam-packed with emotions neither can name but can finally accept. “Aurelia likes you too. And _I_ think she’s right in that.”

Noctis shoves him a bit, laughing at how _bad_ that sounds and embarrassed that he’s the one that said it first.

 

-

 

In the morning, they drive off to Lestallum.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. this happened because i thought 'hm i wanna write something along the lines of [holocene](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11448165) but in noct's perspective', that was nearly 2 months ago and how lucky was i that promptis fan week's first prompt fit to this?!  
> 2\. i dont think i write noct as great as i write prompto which is shocking to me.  
> 3\. this is so fucking long i can't believe this  
> 4\. i felt outright in-yo-face romance didn't fit this, i'm sorry if its so subtle for some tastes. in other fandoms, this was a pet peeve ppl had with my writing, i've never minded bc i love subtle romance. but. well.  
> 5\. maybe i should visit this universe again and see how they're doing?????? hinthintwinkwink  
> 6.songs i listened to while writing this: 
> 
> Breathe Me - Sia  
> Medicine - Daughter  
> Talk Me Down - Troye Sivan  
> Strawberry Swing - Coldplay  
> All I Want - Kodaline  
> Even In My Dreams, I Can't Win - Bad Suns  
> Battle Symphony - Linkin Park
> 
> 7\. confession idk how this turned out, i did not do a reread in fear i'd scrap it all along with my time and stuff. PLS BE GENTLE, I'M FRAGILE  
> 8\. find me at twitter @marsipans_


End file.
